The Navy in Tudor Times "The various ships that were built of yore, And above them all, and strangest of all Towered the _Great Harry_, crank and tall, Whose picture was hanging on the wall, With bows and stern raised high in air, And balconies hanging here and there, And signal lanterns and flags afloat, And eight round towers, like those that frown From some old castle, looking down Upon the drawbridge and the moat." "The Building of the Ship." LONGFELLOW. THE Tudor period, to which this chapter is devoted, is noteworthy as witnessing the birth of the Royal Navy as a permanent national institution. Though we have accounts--probably to a great extent mythical--of the 3600 "very stout" ships of the Saxon King Edgar (A.D. 975), which are said to have been divided into three squadrons, cruising on the north, east, and west coasts of Great Britain; though Edward III, after the victory over the French at Sluys, was dubbed "King of the Sea"; and though Henry V got together the most formidable navy of his time, yet at none of these periods was there what we may term a navy of the realm. Indeed, for the two years, August, 1447, to August, 1449, there may be said to have been no navy at all, since during the whole of this time only £8, 9_s._ 7_d._ was expended upon what we now regard as our first line of defence. At the death of Henry V, in 1422, the "Little Navy" disease broke out again, and nearly the whole of his fine fleet was sold. Things went from bad to worse, till the disgust and uneasiness of the nation found expression in a little work entitled _The Libel of English Policie_. The author, who is supposed to have been Bishop Adam de Molyns, exhorted the nation to "Keepe the Sea and namely the Narrow Sea", and also to secure both Dover and Calais. "Where bene our shippes", says he, "where bene our swerdes become?" He went on to point out how much our naval force had deteriorated since the time when Edward III had caused the famous Golden Noble to be struck, in which he is represented standing in a ship, sword in hand and shield on arm, and thus referred to the signification of the device: "Four things our Noble sheweth unto me: King, Ship and Sword and Power of the Sea".